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Toronto Cleared Cars Off a Major Transit Corridor

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Re: Toronto Cleared Cars Off a Major Transit Corridor

#41

Post by dsfyu404ed »

blakesterz wrote: post #3

Buffalo tried this a few decades ago and it did NOT work. The entire area died, all the restaurants & retail closed. It took millions of dollars and many years to undo it and now the area is back and full of people. I don't know for sure the blame lies entirely on the clearing of cars idea, but that sure didn't help. The city (like many) fell pretty hard for a bunch of reasons at the time they tried this. https://www…

My rust belt city removed main street parking in favor of bike lanes to the same effect but they did it as business was picking back up post-recession. It really pissed people off because all the businesses that folded were the ones that weathered the recession. Our city is somewhat of a commerce destination for the surrounding towns. When they decided to go the bike friendly route all the commerce redistributed itself. The businesses off of main street benefited greatly. They did bring back the prior on-street parking on most of main commercial area of main street and several years later there's a lot less boarded up store fronts.

I think the lesson is that you can't just cave to the bike special interests group or the walk-ability lobby, you have to look at how the economics of your city work and make sure that any changes you make will not shoot it in the foot.

This statement from the article would have me very worried about surviving the next downturn if I were a Toronto business owner.

>Toronto reports business receipts are up along the corridor as well, albeit a tiny 0.3 percent. The rest of the city was up 3.8 percent over the same period.

Re: Toronto Cleared Cars Off a Major Transit Corridor

#42

Post by dade_ »

From my estimation, they are going to kill King Street, it feels deserted and the bars and restaurants are very quiet during weeknight evenings. These changes were made 24 hours a day, not just during rush hour. It makes driving complicated and has caused much more congestion on the connecting streets so I would like to know the impact on other transit routes that cross King Street.

The article mentioned restaurant sales are up 0.3% vs 3.8% in the rest of the city, but didn't mention that employers were hit with a 22% increase in minimum wage this year ($11.40/hr to $14) and this should be reflected by higher prices to recover these costs.

There is no reason for this to cause businesses to go under, but commercial leases are long term and difficult to exit so the real impact won't be obvious for years if this does cause them to shut down or relocate.

Re: Toronto Cleared Cars Off a Major Transit Corridor

#43

Post by blindwatchmaker »

dade_ wrote: post #42

From my estimation, they are going to kill King Street, it feels deserted and the bars and restaurants are very quiet during weeknight evenings. These changes were made 24 hours a day, not just during rush hour. It makes driving complicated and has caused much more congestion on the connecting streets so I would like to know the impact on other transit routes that cross King Street. The article mentioned restaurant s…

I both lived and work near there and this is the exact opposite of my impression. King from bathurst to spadina is always jumping. The biggest annoyance for me is all the damn plants the restaurants and bars have been allowed to put on the street for some reason, makes biking there a headache.

Re: Toronto Cleared Cars Off a Major Transit Corridor

#44

Post by mtreiber »

Dave_TRS wrote: post #8

From Toronto here, and just wanted to clarify that the headline is somewhat misleading in claiming that "it worked". Article begins: > One year after Toronto turned King Street in a transit- and walking-priority street, streetcar ridership, biking and walking are way up. What "worked" is that removing cars did indeed make space for faster streetcars and biking - but this is not surprising, practically a truism! The p…

The interesting thing is that traffic congestion for cars in the downtown core didn't change at all! The study found that average car travel times on adjacent streets vary by less than a minute compared to before the pilot.

https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/8fe2-King-...

Re: Toronto Cleared Cars Off a Major Transit Corridor

#46

Post by mortenjorck »

Dave_TRS wrote: post #8

From Toronto here, and just wanted to clarify that the headline is somewhat misleading in claiming that "it worked". Article begins: > One year after Toronto turned King Street in a transit- and walking-priority street, streetcar ridership, biking and walking are way up. What "worked" is that removing cars did indeed make space for faster streetcars and biking - but this is not surprising, practically a truism! The p…

In 1979, Chicago tried making a stretch of State Street pedestrian-only (allowing bus/taxi access). It was considered a failure, and was returned to regular motor traffic in 1996.

It’s too bad – Chicago could certainly benefit from a major pedestrian district (there is a small one up in Ravenswood), but the reasons for the State Street project’s failures are debated. This piece is a good exploration: https://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/03/11/why-was-the-state-str...

Hopefully Toronto’s avoids the pitfalls of Chicago’s experiment, and eventually serves as a model for this kind of conversion.

Re: Toronto Cleared Cars Off a Major Transit Corridor

#47

Post by ska »

dmix wrote: post #29
jgh wrote: post #4

I lived along there (king & bathurst) for a couple of months last winter and thought it was great. Combined with the new street cars along king st it's really pleasant. At the time r/toronto would have people complaining about a lack of pedestrians or whatever (it was -20 every day for like a month) but that didn't really jive with my experience. Even in the really cold nights I found that there were a good number of…

Really? King St looks perpetually dead to me these days between Spadina and Bathurst, when it used to seem way more active. I've been walking to work and back home nearly every day for most of the year through there, so I saw the difference. I'm cool with experimenting with reducing cars but this seemed a bit extreme. And King St seemed like a bad choice... it doesn't have a hundred small retail stores like Queen St…

FWIW That doesn't seem to match the experience of several others I've discussed this with who have the same pattern (i.e. walking/biking to work along King st for the last few years, including before and after the pilot).

Re: Toronto Cleared Cars Off a Major Transit Corridor

#48

Post by ska »

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #43
dade_ wrote: post #42

From my estimation, they are going to kill King Street, it feels deserted and the bars and restaurants are very quiet during weeknight evenings. These changes were made 24 hours a day, not just during rush hour. It makes driving complicated and has caused much more congestion on the connecting streets so I would like to know the impact on other transit routes that cross King Street. The article mentioned restaurant s…

I both lived and work near there and this is the exact opposite of my impression. King from bathurst to spadina is always jumping. The biggest annoyance for me is all the damn plants the restaurants and bars have been allowed to put on the street for some reason, makes biking there a headache.

And here we have a good demonstration of the value of anecdotal evidence :)

Re: Toronto Cleared Cars Off a Major Transit Corridor

#50

Post by dade_ »

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #43
dade_ wrote: post #42

From my estimation, they are going to kill King Street, it feels deserted and the bars and restaurants are very quiet during weeknight evenings. These changes were made 24 hours a day, not just during rush hour. It makes driving complicated and has caused much more congestion on the connecting streets so I would like to know the impact on other transit routes that cross King Street. The article mentioned restaurant s…

I both lived and work near there and this is the exact opposite of my impression. King from bathurst to spadina is always jumping. The biggest annoyance for me is all the damn plants the restaurants and bars have been allowed to put on the street for some reason, makes biking there a headache.

Yeah, I am referring to Spadina East to Jarvis.
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